Perhaps the $2M for the golf course will pay for itself? Green fees, pro shop rental fees, etc.

As opposed to giving raises to charity workers, which will not pay for itself.

You do realize you're all charity workers, right? Your wages are public charity to the people whom you serve. Should the Supes take out a $2M loan (which is all a bond is) and go into debt just so you can live better on the county charitable services budget?

If the money isn't enough, quit. Find another job, or another industry, or move to an area where cost of living isn't so insanely high. You're not a hostage.

Unlike your employer - the public - you enjoy the freedom to terminate your employment agreement at will.

Employment is a form of contracted exchange. Exchange is a priviledge; not a right.

Try moving to Watsonville. Your income will stretch further down there, and your standard of living will thus improve.

So "pro-golf course dude", your response to 1200 workers is to quit? What is your response to the disabled, elderly, and dying? Go die because the county, state, and federal governments don't want to spend the money on the services that keep you alive or out of institutions, AND BESIDES THEY'VE ALL QUIT BECAUSE "pro-golf course dude" INFORMED THEIR SILLY POOR ASSES ABOUT THEIR REAL POTENTIALS IN LIFE.

Those potentials it seems were about money, not humanity.

Bonds are more than loans. For investors the return is very high. For taxpayers we are giving welfare to the rich. Of course this type of thing is a priority in capitalist America, along with our freedom to hit a little white ball around on an obnoxiously manicured field that should rightly be a redwood forest.

As a socialist: golf, welfare to the rich, bombs, machine guns, Iraq torture prisons, the gunning down of unarmed Iraqi protesters, cops, and prison are not my priorities. Likewise I see that jobs and healthcare are not charity, they are basic rights.

For those who do not recognize this, look out! The combined force of millions of the poor who the rich laughed at and suggested they quit their jobs, combined with the anger of GI’s who were lied to and sent to a war, drafted in the near future… that force will become a revolutionary freight train that will roll over your rightwing ideology and government, and perhaps your corpse if you don’t get out of the way!

If your wages are so totally inadequate for the service you provide, then stop providing it. If the paychecks are so inadequate, then stop cashing them.

Quit! You're not a hostage. Find another job. Go back to school and improve your skills to make yourself more valuable to employers.

Move to another area where rent isn't so high. Living in Santa Cruz is like living in Hawaii or SF or NYC. It's a luxury just to be here.

Anyway Mr. Socialist aren't you supporting the big evil capitalists by living here? Move to Watsonville where you don't have to pay as much rent into the coffers of those you despise. Stop empowering your enemy, you hypocrite.

To the needy, I don't say "go die". I say "I am sorry, but the charity workers who were serving you are no longer willing to serve you at the meager wage we can afford to pay them. Here is a list of other charitable organizations that may be able to help you in the future."

So the golf course is "an obnoxiously manicured field that should rightly be a redwood forest"?!?! Because you know we have a real shortage of redwood forests around Santa Cruz. Not.

Jobs and healthcare are NOT basic rights when those priviledges cost someone else. When your "rights" come at the expense of someone else's rights, that is called S-L-A-V-E-R-Y.

In 2004 the working-class lived in tax-slavery from January 1st until April 11th. 3.5 months!
www.taxfoundation.org/taxfreedomday.html
It's not the galley-chain or sharecropper slavery of old, but it is your new "kinder, gentler" socialist slavery of the productive members of society to the bleeding-heart liberals who use the poor and disabled to mask their pathological hatred of self-sufficiency and of even moderate financial success.

I'm tired of working 3 months straight to pay for conservative charity to the people of Iraq.

I'm tired of working 3 months straight to pay for liberal charity to the people of America.

I ALREADY do what I can to help people (within my limited financial means, AFTER TAXES). But I choose my charities carefully, and I only support those that are cost-effective. This compels them to BE cost-effective.

I can't do that with welfare. Despite your tirade against machine guns and bombs, your socialist gun is pointed at my head every April 15th and infact every 2 weeks.

I've seen how your Robin Hood welfare system spends its ill-gotten gains, too. Waste, fraud, and abuse are rampant.

Meanwhile, I'm struggling just to pay rent while YOU pick my pocket every 2 weeks to fund YOUR charities on YOUR terms. Might makes right? The end justifies the means? Okay, Stalin.

Mr. Argue,

Your rhetoric demonizes the rich, but in fact your so-called principals make even the middle working class your enemy.

These divide-and-conquer tactics of yours must cease. As must your obsession with fomenting an us-vs-them dichotomy. You are only hurting the public by promoting a binary world view.

We will never become truly free without unity of all people under common cause. Please start to see that. WE NEED UNITY MOST OF ALL.

Blessed Are The Peacemakers

Please, Steve. May I call you Steve?

Life's necessities are not charity.

Opposing slavery, war, racism, and death does not make Steve Stalin.

I thought this was a progressive site. Healthcare is a right. Ban the Nazis.

I take care of my daughter through IHSS. I had to quit a better paying job. Now I survive on IHSS earnings. Should I quit and let her die?

I voted for Tim for president and agree with Steven.

Nothing mentioned has anything to do with charity.

1) What's the obsession with moving to Watsonville? Rents are rising there, too.
2) "If your wages are so totally inadequate for the service you provide, then stop providing it." That's a great argument if your job is total bullshit. For *some* city employees, doing humanitarian work providing direct services to people in need isn't just a job, it's something they are emotionally involved in: helping. Seems kinda foreign to the golf course crowd, I know. But it's not all about the money for some people, troll. A lot of people do work that is underpaid and undervalued. A lot of people do no work and are criminally overpaid. They are called CEOs.

3)"Conservative charity to the people of Iraq" How misled you sound. How sick to call bombs and torture, occupation and gun barrel diplomacy "charity." I can think of almost nothing more revolting.

4) How is Steve Argue responsible for the budget of the Santa Cruz City agencies? "Your Robin Hood welfare system..." "YOU pick my pocket to fund YOUR charities on YOUR terms..." I don't understand how critics of city policies and those actually willing to raise their voices in dissent or who work for progress are blamed for the very system we wish to change. Yes, troll, "waste, fraud, and abuse" are common. Financing a golf course is a perfect example.
4) Golf courses are piss poor public planning, and our city government has no business getting involved in them: they are environmentally destructive (takes a lot of RoundUp™ to keep that shit green and lush all year), and they destroy wildlife corridors (don't give me that 'they're creating habitat' bullshit). Santa Cruz may not lack redwood forests (yet) but when the water shortages hit we're taking the golf courses OFFLINE first. Where's that water come from anyway?
5) Let's look at who we're talking about, since none of us seem to be unionized city employees. In-Home Support workers are paid meager wages to provide care to the uninsured sick elderly. They aren't necessarily MDs or Nurses, etc, but they provide personal attention to people very much in need. There must be a unique irony in being denied insurance coverage through your job which is providing healthcare to the uninsured.
6) Argue is divisive and binary for what again? Speaking out against rubber stamp support for the Sit! Fetch boy! Roll over and Concede! Candidate Kerry? Is he attacking the middle class for golfing? Heaven forbid. Golf is the only 'sport' I can think of where it is against the rules to share equipment. Get your own set of clubs or get out. The divisive ones are those who continue to insist that we support the Democratic Party despite a nice long record with SELL OUT written all over it and two consecutive EASY wins against Baby Bush and nothing to show for it. The Democratic Party is finished. Too many of us have already walked away. We're waiting, watching, astounded that you're all still sitting patiently, waiting for some bourgeoisie golfer to save you.
7) "Anyway Mr. Socialist aren't you supporting the big evil capitalists by living here?... you don't have to pay as much rent into the coffers of those you despise. Stop empowering your enemy, you hypocrite ." Okay Troll--why are you on indymedia other than to waste our my (our) time? The question is: WHY ARE THE COFFERS THEIRS? This is our city. Our city government. Our city budget. So it's welfare if the city pays a living wage? It's charity if the government pays its citizens a better wage than private business? The government is supposed to be a good employer. It astounds me that people believe that the government should be able to pay people so little that they can't afford to live in the jurisdiction of the very same government they work for. You want us to flee Santa Cruz and leave it to the golfers and landlords and vacation rentals? This is MY COUNTRY. There's no reason any of us should live under the thumb of these people. Wasn't that one of your points? How do you pretend to know anything about how anyone else lives anyway?
8) How is "quit your job" a solution? Yah, here's some advice city workers: Instead of going on strike, quit, file for unemloyment or workers comp. Or go to a publicly funded school and improve your lot in life. These sound like solutions that a tax freedom capitalist should be attacking, not advocating. Are you confused? You want these city workers to take control of their destinies, quit their jobs as the ultimate form of protest, and get on the dole that they are currently running?
Robin Hood welfare system my ass.
You really believe that our government is in the business of robbing the rich? Please.

Today the government fucks us in every way. I must ask the author of to Mr. "Argue".

Unify with who for what purpose?

who would blame them SEIU is a scam, onion officials take their money and do nothing in return SEIU is an example of the worst form of union abuse that I have ever seen.

SEIU sucks! why not revolt

this union is the pitts, I have never seen anything from them except their hand in my pocket

I sure hope no one buys large cheap bags of salt and spreads it all over the grass of that golf course in the middle of the night. That would kill the grass and render it impossible for new grass to be planted any time soon, which would really fuck up our lovely golf course.

Golf course terrorists, dont even think it!

If you're part of the protest Cindy, then you shouldn't quit and let your daughter die. You should quit and find a better paying job, or quit and move to a cheaper area, so that you can afford to provide for her better.

Never forget where most of your wages come from. The government is no magic money tree. Nor do they hold bake sales. They extort that money from your family, friends, neighbors, and fellow Americans with threats of theft and prison for those who wont pay their protection money.

Might as well work for Gap, and make your money off the back of the sweatshop workers of India. Or work for Walmart, and make your money off the prison labor of China.

The author of "to Cindy" should come up with a consistent alias if they aren't going to use their real name. So in response to one person under the aliases "to Cindy", "that golf course", and "Yes, quit":

Your advice is not practical on many levels.

It is bad advice to tell an individual to quit their job and then find another. That is a way to become homeless. If the goal is a better job it is much more practical to look for that better job while working your current job.

Likewise, gaining more skills through higher education is best not started with a rash quitting of current employment.

While one is in their current employment strengthening ones union is also a way to gain a better job.

Even if Cindy does find a higher paying job (which she probably had before she quit her previous job) she would then need to have other workers come into her house to take care of her daughter. Generally the best caregivers are family members.

IHSS workers perform a needed job. It is no more a charity than the fire department coming and putting out a fire in your house. Likewise, since many government workers perform essential functions in this society we deserve a living wage, health coverage, and a pension. Today you don't care, but I think your attitude will change if ever become disabled.

That is the difference between you and I, Steve. I do not define Right and Wrong based upon my needs. That is the reasoning of a child. It is subjective. It is arbitrary. It is what inevitably sets man against man in the struggle for one another's resources.

I hope, though I cannot say, that should I ever find myself so needy, my spiritual will shall still prevail over my animal disability and I will neither resort to, nor condone, theft to serve my own needs.

Ma-ha-Shari states there are only 4 crimes. Deceit, theft, captivity, and murder. All enslave the victim to the criminal for the criminal's wants and needs.

Government, as funded through involuntary taxation, is organized crime. Those who work for, or receive benefits from, government are parasites, living forcibly off the productive members of society.

These productive members are not without sympathy or a sense of charity. But our socialist government has made 2nd-class citizens of the working-class, and has placed the needy up upon a pedastal of superiority, above our heads. The working-class have become slaves to the feeding-class.

"insert alias here", Your statements are so absurd as to hardly warrant a response, but...

(1) My concerns are about society as a whole, not my own selfish interests. If that was all I cared about I could be making a whole lot more money somewhere else, such as screwing people over in some corporation in the private sector. I decided at a young age to fight the injustices in this society rather than be part of them or promote them as you are doing.

Taking care of the disabled, elderly, and dying is hardly a selfish concern. Nor is the demand that all workers get a living wage. Selfishness is no more a motivation than it would be if I were trying to stop the test of an atomic weapon on Santa Cruz. Yes, there would be self-interest, but no, it would not be selfish.

(2) We live under a capitalist government, not a socialist one. This capitalist government prioritizes spending on war, prisons, and police over meeting human needs. This spending is far greater than what they spend on social services. In addition this is spending that has a negative social impact, but creates large profits for corporations and the capitalists that own them.

A socialist economy is one that nationalizes the corporations and uses the wealth of society, wealth created by the labor of workers, to meet the human and environmental needs of the people and planet.

To learn about socialism visit two other groups I am active in:

Liberation News, For the Workers Democracy Party (USA)
groups.yahoo.com/group/Liberation_News/

Workers Democracy International
groups.yahoo.com/group/Workers_Democracy/

I am happy to see that the voice of dissent is alive and well! As the newly elected President of the Homecare chapter I will continue to push for the rights of the workers; rights that have been
interpreted selectively by the Homcare rep and Executive director of SEIU415. The next two years will be NOTHING like the past two! As our dues are increased and simultaneously almost 1/2 the members of our chapter loose their Healthcare coverage, the question of our union's committment to it's members comes into the forefront of our
discussions. It's time to help the 415 to know what we need and what has to be done to ensure our security for the future. This past weekend, I was in Chicago at the USLAW (US Labor Against the
WAR)conference and will be reporting back on it.
I celebrate NO FEAR! Everyone should have a forum like "Rank and File Revolt" to speak their hearts and minds.

In sweet solidarity,
Tim Ahearn
SEIU415 Homecare Chapter President

Steve, I would like to bring up a few points. Capitalism is first and foremost a social relation, not a type of government. Secondly, it is based on the extraction of surplus-value from labor, and thus the accumulation of capital. This is possible because people have been dispossesed of the means to directly meet their needs, and are forced to sell their labor for a wage. With this in mind, how is your "socialist economy" not capitalist? The corporations are nationalized, but they still exist! In other words, I am assuming you want to replace the capitalist free market with One Big Capitalist (the state). I have brought up similar ideas before, see santacruz.indymedia.org/newswire/display_any/12353. What I am trying to do is cut through the rhetoric about the "needs of the people" and try to understand what you are actually talking about.

It is true that capitalism is a social relationship, one based on the exploitation of the vast majority for the profits of a very few. Governments that enforce those social relationships through the use of their cops, courts, military, and establishment politicians are capitalist governments.

I do not agree Tony Cliff or Max Shachtman in their theories that characterize the deformed workers states as state capitalism. I'll post more on this later when I have a little more time.

I'll be sure to tell everyone down at the Farmer's Market where I buy my organic vegetables, that they're exploiting the majority.. somehow.

Those awful Girl Scouts too. Don't they realize when they sell those cookies, they're exploiting the majority? Terrible little children!

Capitalism is so wrong.

Capitalism is not evil for the buying and selling of goods. The buying and selling of produce goes on in socialist societies as well. The difference is in the ownership of the means of production. In America a very small number of capitalists have controlling shares in every major corporation. They also control the government through the Democrat and Republican Parties and their ownership of the media. It is this capitalist class that sets an agenda of spending on spending on war, prisons, and police while exploiting the working class and the environment around the world for the maximum profit they can get away with extracting.

Where in the Constitution, Articals of Confederation or the Magna Charta does it say that Healtcare is a god(s) given right.

Perhaps "trolish golfer" you should consult some other documents if you can not find basic human rights in the ones you find so sacred.

I stated earlier that I would respond to the person who goes by the name "clarification" about why I do not agree with Tony Cliff or Max Shachtman in their theories that characterize the deformed workers states as state capitalism.

I have just made two posts that do so:

The Negative And Positive Lessons Of October 1917
santacruz.indymedia.org/newswire/index.php

On North Korea, Cuba, and Vietnam
santacruz.indymedia.org/newswire/display/13243/index.php

"On North Korea, Cuba, and Vietnam" goes into some detail about the advantages of the planned economy over capitalism.

"The Negative And Positive Lessons Of October 1917" discusses the negative impact of the socialist government (and thus the socialist economy) not being under the democratic control of the working class.

Steve, I read your posts. So you disagree with Tony Cliff and Max Schachtman's theories. I never said I agreed with them. You also claim that your posts deal with their theories when they obviously don't. This is clearly dishonest. I read in the journal Aufheben that "Cliff's theory has often been used by Orthodox Trotskyists as a straw man with which to refute all state capitalist theories and sustain the orthodox conception of the USSR as a degenerated worker's state." (www.geocities.com/aufheben2/6.html)
You seem to be a non-Trotskyist who wanted to use it as a strawman but didn't even get that far. The Russian revolution had inherited a poor economically backward nation, and "the revolution" obviously had to do something about it. I believe Marx used a certain term, primitive accumulation to describe this capitalist process. What sort of government does not rely on terror, Steve? I don't care if the "revolutionary government" should not have had to, they did have to! While you show signs of being less ideologically rigid than many Marxists (your words about Hungary '56), you seem to be incapable of grasping the difference between political and social revolution. Here is a note from an article I provided a link to (albeit a different link):
"Marx (notably in the 1844 article The King of Prussia and social reform, and other early works) developed a critique of politics, and opposed "political" to "social" revolution: the former rearranged links between individuals and groups without much change in what they actually do, the latter acted upon how people reproduce their means of existence, their way of life, their real condition, thus at the same time transforming how they relate to each other.

One of the very first rebellious gestures is to revolt against control over our lives from above, by a teacher, a boss, a policeman, a social worker, a union leader, a statesman... Then politics walks in and reduces aspirations and desires to a problem of power- be it handed to a party, or shared by everyone. But what we lack is the power to produce our life. A world where all electricity comes to us from mammoth (coal, fuel-oil or nuclear) power stations, will always remain out of our reach. Only the political mind thinks revolution is primarily a question of power seizure and/or redistribution." (www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/3909/ecapfoot.html/) Steve, I believe the key to your thoughts on deformations of worker's states is that a worker's state is a deformation! I don't want to provide too many links, but there is an essay called "The continuing appeal of nationalism" that is essential to understanding these ideas in a wider context. Here's the link: www.marxists.org/reference/archive/perlman-fredy/1984/nationalism.htm Basically, you have not refuted anything I have said. Workers have to be forced to remain workers. Lenin understood that. Somehow you don't.

I guess I have to spell things out.

My dear anarchist, I have directly refuted the idea you share with Tony Cliff, the absurd idea that the countries that have overthrown capitalism are capitalist. I did this in:

On North Korea, Cuba, and Vietnam
santacruz.indymedia.org/newswire/display/13243/index.php

My dear anarchist, you may not agree with Cliff on other things, but you definitely believe in the myth of state capitalism. No straw man here. This was answered fully.

As for the problems of the Leninist models of socialism, they were fully answered in:

The Negative And Positive Lessons Of October 1917
santacruz.indymedia.org/newswire/display/13245/index.php

In your opposition to working class power, my dear anarchist, the obvious alternative is the continued dictatorship of the wealthy with its continued war, exploitation, and environmental destruction. Those not interested in power either have no clue or no interest in change. You leave power in the hands of those that cause our problems. Even worse, you pretend that your radical defense of the status quo is somehow revolutionary.

Likewise, ecological problems with coal, oil, or nuclear power production will not be resolved under a capitalist economy where the predominant consideration is profit. It will take socialism to save the planet.

Covering everyone never made sense. Healthcare in the Universal
sense, can never be attached to one's state of employment because as
soon as one is unemployed or sick or whatever they lose it. I
believe in universal coverage but we never had that. We had a really
bad tiered plan that even with a buy-up still sucked. The plan we
have now is much better and those who don't qualify through their
hours can buy-in at a very low rate comparative to cost of treatment.

I was present at the count and there were only a few votes that
could not be counted and I don't think it was from the capitola
meeting. The voting margin was so wide that those few votes would
not have changed anything.

Your argument that the initial mailing was a more accurate
representation is not valid because the differences in the health
options were not easily understood from the mailing.

Workers had three opportunities to get to a polling place. People
who worked stunning amounts of hours found a way to be there. Those
motivated voted.

It would be shocking to hear a paid union representative tell us that
covering everyone's healthcare never made sense, if this wasn't just
a continuation of what these misleaders have been saying all along.
The simple fact of the matter is that neither option put to the
membership for a vote was acceptable.

Tony Madrigal went into negotiations insisting that the negotiating
team ask for nothing, insisting that all meetings be held in
Watsonville where he got free labor out of me when he gave me rides
while giving paid jobs to those who, like you Sherry, agreed with his
sell-out approach.

Tony Madrigal sold us out to the Democrat politicians who we were
negotiating with in the county and used homecare workers as a
stepping-stone for Democrat Party backing in his run for Santa Cruz
City Council.

Sherry Hall, there is a reason you were not elected for homecare
president, even though you were Tony's hand picked person. That says
a lot more about what the membership is thinking than how we voted
when presented with the choice between two bad healthcare proposals.

Tony Madrigal went into negotiations asking for nothing and that is
exactly what we got. Tony should resign or be removed from his
position and our bylaws should be changed so that our elected
leadership (and therefore membership) actually runs the union.